What I wear when skiing
While I am writing this it does not look all that much like winter outside. There might be some frost on the ground in the morning, but other than that… let’s just say the lawn is green. Fortunately, you don’t have to travel too far from where I live to find some proper winter conditions. One of my favourite things to do during winter is to go skiing (cross-country skiing), and I realised the other day that there is quite a bit of difference in both what I wear and what I bring with me when I go skiing depending on where I am going. If there is snow at home the area I go skiing in is a sort of lowland, forested area. While when the conditions are like now and there isn’t any snow in sight I have to travel up to the mountains to find proper ski conditions.
For the trips close to home I usually don’t stay out for more than 1-2 hours and the weather usually stays relatively similar to what it was when going out for the duration of the trip. In the mountains on the other hand, I tend to go out for a little longer, maybe 2-4 hours and I usually also stop for a lunch break. The weather also changes much faster in the mountains, so even if the forecast says it is going to be a nice and sunny day it could change in a matter of minutes and suddenly you are in the middle of a snowstorm.
Here I have compiled a list of what I usually wear and bring with me for these two different kinds of ski trips.
Lowland
What I wear:
Wool bra and boxer
Wool socks
Wool underwear
Ski suit
Ski shoes
Gloves
Wool buff
Hat
What I bring:
Hipbag
Wool sweater
Water bottle
Rescue foil
Small snack (musli bar, aple, banana etc)
Mountains
What I wear:
Wool bra and boxer
Wool socks
Wool underwear
Goretex trousers
Goretex jacket (or other wind and waterproof jacket) with a hood
Ski shoes
Gaiters
Gloves
Wool buff
Hat
What I bring:
Backpack
Thick wool sweater and/or thin down jacket
Extra wool buff
Mittens
First aid kit (including rescue foil and whistle)
Waterbottle
Small snack (musli bar, aple, banana etc)
Packed lunch
Sit pad
Somtimes I wear a thin wool sweater over the (here blue) wool underwear instead of the jacket. In those cases the jacket is in the backpack and ready to use in case of bad weather.
There is also a compas, a pocket knife and a firesteel that just live in my back, so they also come allong whenever I bring my backpack.
To be clear, most of the time when I’m out I follow prepped ski tracks and I rarely go skiing alone. In adition to what I have listed above, when skiing in the mountains, at least one peson in the group is carrying a windsack of some sort.
This is what I bring with me, and what you bring might be something else entirely. You might dissagree with the amount of sweaters I bring, but if you ask me it is bette to have one to many sweaters than to be cold when sitting down.
